AN NCS PREMIERE: ABSOLVTION — “THE LION’S FACE”

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May 062018
 

 

“The Lion’s Face” is one of four tracks on Gallow’s Destiny, the new EP by the French black/death metal band Absolvtion, whose debut was the Obscure Catharsis demo in 2016. Gallow’s Destiny will be released on July 31st by Atavism Records, and “The Lion’s Face” is the first sign of the terrors that Absolvtion have created in this new work.

The music here pulls the listener headlong into an alien nightmare, choking with the aroma of pestilence and dazzled by visions of shape-shifting archfiends. Both cruelly oppressive and irresistibly innervating, the song becomes an eye-opening herald to Absolvtion’s rising power within the globe-spanning realms of the black/death underground. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: DEMETRA SINE DIE — “LAMENT”

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May 042018
 

 

“Post Glacial Rebound is a deep black space.. our inner space.. made of memories, emotions, pain, and joy, where we have found comfort and refuge. We hope you can feel the same.” So say the Italian trio Demetra Sine Die about their new third album, which will be released next month by Third I Rex, a UK label that has proven to have very interesting and eclectic tastes and no rigid genre constraints. Based on the song we’re presenting today from Post Glacial Rebound, the same may be said of Demetra Sine Die’s latest work.

This is the band’s third album, and Third I Rex tells us that it “marks a further development and deeper move into psychedelic, post-fueled, sludge-driven hallucinations,” and also includes “blackened/death overtures and krautrock elements”. Those words certainly fed my own sense of intrigue about Post Glacial Rebound, as I hope they do yours, and the song you’re about to hear — “Lament” — should feed it even more. Continue reading »

AN NCS ALBUM PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): KATARI — “AVE, REX IVDAEORVM!”

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May 032018
 

 

This album is going to hit most of you like a lightning strike out of the clear blue sky, and just like the shock and surprise of such a electrifying event, it will leave most listeners with a megawatt jolt down the spine and eyes popping out of a smoking head.

It’s a fair guess that only a fortunate few have previously encountered Katari. They’re a duo (Dany I. and Assassin) based in Huánuco, Peru, who first joined forces in early 2006 and went on to release a handful of demos in very limited quantities, as well as a 2011 split and a 2013 EP (At Peace). With any luck, their music is about to reach a bigger audience, thanks to the release of their debut album, Ave, Rex Ivdaeorvm!, on May 4 by From Deepest Records. And maybe our premiere of the music will be of some help, too. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: HOTH — “THE GATHERING OF THE ACCURSED ARTIFACTS”

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May 032018
 

 

I discovered the Seattle duo Hoth (David Dees and Eric Peters) through their second album, Oathbreaker, released in 2014. After impetuously listening to just the first track and the last one, I wrote: “Multifaceted, meticulously executed, epic in its ambitions and its achievements, this is really impressive.” I became even more impressed after hearing the whole album, and ultimately chose one track (“Serpentine Whispers”) for our list of 2014’s Most Infectious Extreme Metal Songs.

Four years later, Hoth are bringing us a new album named Astral Necromancy, which will be released on June 15. They describe it as follows:

“This is a concept album – but one of a somewhat different sort. Oathbreaker was a concept album that lead the listener down a darker and darker path; it was a linear journey. On the other hand, Astral Necromancy already exists in the crushing, unforgiving darkness. There are no paths. There is no light and no hope — just an exploration of cosmic mysteries and black magic – a journey in infinite directions.

“It is a concept album in the sense that there is a common thread through each of the songs that bind them together as each individually explores an aspect of this darkness. The eleven tracks on the album explore themes ranging from corruption of the self to what lies at the end of all time; from journeys through frostbitten wastelands to the acquisition of forbidden knowledge, and more.

“We hesitate to be any more specific than that because the meaning of the album is best expressed through listening to it. The experience itself brings its own meaning to each listener”. Continue reading »

ALKALOID: OUR PREMIERE OF “AS DECREED BY LAWS UNWRITTEN” AND OUR REVIEW OF “LIQUID ANATOMY”

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May 032018
 

 

(On May 18th Season of Mist will release the hotly anticipated (and thoroughly remarkable) second album by Alkaloid (which is now available for pre-order HERE), and today we are delighted to present the premiere of a track from the album as well as Andy Synn’s extensive review of the record, all of which he introduces with a bevy of comments from members of the band.)

So I originally wrote this review last month, and expected it to be published… well… then.

However, just prior to publication, we were offered an exclusive track premiere, and I was asked if I minded holding off on publishing for a little while so that things would line up better. And, of course, I said fine, because I’m nice like that.

Now the song in question, “As Decreed By Laws Unwritten”, is one of the heaviest, and most purely Death Metal tracks, on the entire album, and one of the few which fits with our site name, in that it features… no clean singing.

It’s also one of the songs written entirely by guitarist Danny Tunker, as he explains here:

“This was the second song I wrote for Liquid Anatomy. When we first started sending demos and talking about songs, we felt we needed some heavier songs. We had the title track, which is a ballad, and “Kernel Panic”, which didn’t have a heavy section yet, and another song I wrote, which was a mellotron-driven prog-ballad at that point and turned into “In Turmoil’s Swirling Reaches” later. As a result, Florian wrote “Azagthoth” and I wrote “As Decreed By Laws Unwritten”. Continue reading »

AN NCS EP PREMIERE (AND A REVIEW): EKPYROSIS — “PRIMORDIAL CHAOS RESTORED”

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May 022018
 

 

Many bands have followed the trail of blood and death blazed by such heralded bands as Incantation and Immolation in the early-to-mid ’90s, and there is no sign that the path is about to run into a wall or lead over a cliff’s edge. But of course it must be said that some bands who think they’re hot on that trail have in fact wandered off into a dull and featureless place, the music a lifeless pantomime of the real thing.

On the other hand, the Italian band Ekpyrosis haven’t lost their way. More precisely, they’re in the vanguard of the movement’s newer adherents. They proved they belong with their excellent debut album Asphyxiating Devotion last year, a record that was tremendously satisfying in its own right but also a promise of perhaps greater things ahead. On their new EP, Primordial Chaos Restored, Ekpyrosis have moved from strength to strength, and it’s our great pleasure to bring you a full stream of it today in advance of its May 7 release by Terror From Hell Records. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMERE: GRIMORIUM VERUM — “THE BORN SON OF THE DEVIL”

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May 022018
 

 

It seems that for many years I’ve been mis-using the words “bombastic” and “grandiose” in my scribblings about music. As an acquaintance more literate than I recently pointed out to myself and others, the dictionary defines “bombastic” as “high-sounding but with little meaning”, “inflated”, and “given exaggerated importance by artificial or empty means”, while it specifies that “grandiose” refers to an “affectation of grandeur or splendor” or something characterized by “absurd exaggeration”.

What I’ve often intended by those words, though clearly failing to express the intention accurately, is music that’s dazzling in its power, perhaps ornate in its trappings, resplendent in its atmosphere of vaulting majesty — music that’s grand instead of grandiose. Those are among the impressions I had when first listening to the music from Grimorium Verum’s new album, Revenant, including the album’s opening song which we’re presenting today — “The Born Son of the Devil“. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: THOUGHT EATER — “COVENANT”

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May 012018
 

 

Prepare yourselves for a thoroughly engrossing, mind-altering, well-off-the-beaten path experience.

The long beguiling track we have for you is named “Covenant“, and it comes from Bones In the Fire, the debut album by the Baltimore-based instrumental trio Thought Eater. This is the group’s second release overall, following a 2016 split with Iron Jawed Guru, and it will be released by Grimoire Records on May 18th.

And before you scoff at the idea of falling into the grip of a purely instrumental track that’s nine-and-a-half minutes long (we know some of you need a steady diet of un-clean vocals), give me a minute to convince you that this is worth all of those minutes and seconds. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: ADVENT OF BEDLAM — “THE EVER WATCHFUL EYE”

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May 012018
 

 

With two albums behind them, the Costa Rican band Advent of Bedlam are looking ahead to the release of their third full-length, Human Portal Phenomenon, by their new label Horror Pain Gore Death Productions on May 4th. DECIBEL premiered a lyric video for one track (“Olympus Mons”), and another track (“A Human Farm”) is also out in the world. Today we present a third one — “The Ever Watchful Eye“.

The new album comes recommended for fans of Belphegor, Dead Congregation, Hate Eternal, Immolation, Incantation, and Morbid Angel. As those names might suggest, it delivers a brand of death metal that’s ferocious and technically impressive, augmented by progressive instrumental flourishes, flashes of blackened barbarism, and a welcome attention to melody. Continue reading »

AN NCS PREMIERE: BEGAT THE NEPHILIM — “GRIMOIRE OF CRYPTID”

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Apr 302018
 

 

From their home base in southern New Hampshire, Begat the Nephilim have been plying their chosen trade since 2012, that trade being a form of blackened melodic death metal that has taken them to stages in support of Napalm Death, Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Dillinger Escape Plan, Job For A Cowboy, and Suicide Silence and landed them on the Summer Slaughter tour and the New England Metal and Hardcore Festival.

Unholy Anarchy Records will release the band’s debut album, Begat the Nephilim I: The Surreptitious Prophecy / Mother of the Blasphemy, on June 15th, and today we present the album’s eighth track, “Grimoire of Cryptid“. Continue reading »

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